To Recover What Was Lost
by Logical.Sola.Patho.Aozora.Orbs
Summary: After another failure to find Sasuke, Naruto heads home to find Sakura defected from the village. With a limited amount of time, Naruto has to put his team back together once and for all, and regardless of their protests. Team 7 fic. Sakura/Naruto/Sasuke.


**This idea came to me when i was reading the current manga. It will have spoilers so i advise you to use caution if you aren't completely up to date on the manga, as of right now; 6/02/08, that is chapter 402. This story also diverges with the cannon about 402, as you'll see. So I guess it's kind of AU.**

**This is Naruto/Sasuke/Sakura. You are forwarned! I leave it to your discretion to decide whether or not this is what you would like to read about, aka crazy threesome sex. Some other warnings are as follows; Statutory Rape, yaoi, violence of a graphic nature and ANGST. (personally i love angst, but hey to each their own.)**

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_It was dark and everything smelled of smoke. He watched as his two teammates sat back to back. Sakura-chan was crying. Sasuke was bleeding. He was running over to them. They couldn't see him. They couldn't see each other. Sasuke stared straight ahead like he couldn't hear Sakura's crying, and as if he couldn't feel his life slipping away through the wound in his side. Why wouldn't Sakura heal him? She could fix him._

_ She never cried like this, not anymore. She strived to do the emotional bit later when there was nothing more she could do. Perhaps not at all anymore. The crying increased, as did the bleeding. _

_He was at their sides, but Sasuke gave no notice, and Sakura's hair shrouded her face. They were ignoring him. Like they had in the begining, before they were Team 7. His own body felt like ice._

_ He yelled but Sakura continued to cry. Sasuke just sat there, dying, his facial expression never changed, but Sakura's sobs got louder. Why couldn't they see him? He yelled louder and shoved his hands in their faces. No response. He even kicked the bastards wound, only to pull his shoe back sticky with blood and realize Sasuke hadn't even felt it._

_He put his hands on both their shoulders, to shake them out of it, and they stopped. Sakura stopped crying at once, she turned to face him. Sasuke had also stopped bleeding from the wound in his left side. It felt like a miracle, until Naruto realized that their eyes were not focused on him, just his direction. Sakura and Sasuke's identical glassy eyed gazes did not register the blond man with his hands on their shoulders. Naruto groaned in dismay and sank to his knees. He took his hands off their shoulders. The green and black emptiness remained rooted to him. The crying and bleeding did not restart. _

_He didn't know what to do._

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Naruto awoke to a tightness in his rib cage and lungs. He had had another dream about his teammates. Another bad one. But like the rest of his night time dreams, this one was quickly forgotten; because today he was coming home to see Sakura-chan. He deconstructed his camp for the last night, made some instant food and packed up. He was excited to see Sakura-chan, but he regretted that he had failed her again. He hadn't been able to locate Sasuke, much less convince him to come home. He just hoped Sakura had recovered from the state he had left her in. It wasn't exactly life threatening, but Naruto knew that if he had brought Sasuke home all those years ago, she never would have over worked herself like she had. She never would have suffered like she had. With that depressing thought, he headed back at the full speed that no one other then Lee seemed to be able to keep up with.

When Naruto reached the Leaf after his predictably unsuccessful mission to find Sasuke, there were two things wrong. One Sakura-chan was not at the gates at her emergency medical attention post so he couldn't give her his gift, and two through out the village there were more disgruntled whispers from civilians then even the normal high level.

It was only when Iruka-sensei tearfully through his arms aroung Naruto yelling "You're alive!" that Naruto put two and two together. Obviously, the entire village was under the impression that he had died. He decided to find the old hag and disprove that piece of incorrect intelligence immediately!

Later, after walking through the main part of town to reach the Hokage Tower, and getting side tracked by fellow shinobi inviting him to ramen. Who he was surprised to notice seemed happy to see him breathing, Naruto found that the story that was believed by the entire village was that he and Sasuke had both died in a fight to the death. One of the many problems with this story however, as Naruto proceeded to tell Kiba, Shino, Kurenai, Kurenai's brat, and ever a very strange girl, a passed out Hinata, was that Naruto had never run into Sasuke. He had never even been close to finding Sasuke, the Uchiha had virtually dissapeared.

Naruto had found a red haired girl who had been traveling with Sasuke, and she proceeded to try to kill him, but the red head had no idea of what she called her precious Sasuke-kun's where abouts. She seemed convinced that Sasuke was searching for her, and when Naruto told her that with her crazy attitude that Sasuke probably glad to be rid of her; the girl had proceeded to stab him in the hand with a kunai. Women these days. Oh... and speaking of women, where was Sakura-chan?

It was the look on their faces that told him nothing good was going to be spoken. Hinata had woken up from her ritual post-viewing-Naruto faint. Not that he noticed that pattern though. It was the Hyuuga Heiress who told Naruto that he should probably talk to the Hokage. So this is how Naruto ended up coliding with Tsunade's freshly washed window and scaring the Godaime into near cardiac arrest. It's not everyday someone that you believe to be dead hits your 6th story window like a cardinal with a broken wing.

Tsunade was immensely happy to see her blond haired secret successor (secret only because he didn't know he had been chosen for the job.) alive. The problem became the news she was forced to relay about her apprentice. By Naruto's countenance he had already found something to be off. Tsunade's attempt to explain the situation was preempted by the nine tailed foxes container's loud voice.

"Sakura-chan. Where is she baa-chan? She's not-- When I left you said she'd be fine. People suffer from chakra exaustion comas. They wake up. You said-- She's fine. She's strong. She's the toughest kunochi. She's the best kunoichi ever. You said she'd be fine. Just needed to take it easy. She can't be-- But they talked about her like-- They said--" Naruto rambled his sentences on so fast that that the Hokage had to yell for silence.

"No Naruto. Sakura isn't dead. She has defected from the village." Tsunade paused seeing the look of horror on Naruto's face. The Hokage could see where his thoughts were headed and quickly set him straight. "She did it legally. Like I did when I was only a little older then she is now. You being alive must me that the Uchiha truly is dead."

"No baa-chan, Sasuke and I never fought. I never even found him. I did fight two more Akatski. Thats why it took me so long to get back. They got away. I found out Itachi's dead. Sasuke killed him, but no one knows where the bastard is now. Now how can we call Sakura back. Show her I'm not going anywhere." There was a pause in which Tsunade tried to think of the best way to tell the bright boy in front of her what he really didn't want to hear.

"There isn't." Naruto just stared at the Hokage's words.

"Sure there is. Just send a message to where ever she defected to and tell her to come back." Naruto's earnest words only made what Tsunade had to tell him more difficult.

"Naruto, when ninja defect from their villages especially when they are ninja of the caliber that Sakura is or I was at the time I defected; they are advised not to contact anyone in their home villages. Do you know why?"

"Because people think they are cowards for leaving?"

"Be serious, brat."

"Okay baa-chan! You didn't have to hit me!"

"They don't tell anyone where they are or where they are going because that makes them that much easier to be preyed upon by enemy ninja. Sakura's body is full of Konoha secrets, secrets she has been taught to guard with her life. She doesn't write or call Konoha because she would be that much easier to track. She won't tell people who she actually is because it leaves a trail. She is impossible to find right now until she decides to be findable or comes back. That could take years. For me; and my apprentice is very much like me, it took decades."

"So what, we just let her wander around thinking me and the bastard died killing each other? No way. I have to go find her!" Naruto yelled in his normal impassioned friend saving manner.

"How are you going to do it, brat? There's no way the elders would approve of you going on another mission for a long period of time. They were convinced the Akatski had killed you and were planning on taking over the world as we spoke."

"Then I'll defect too!"

"Naruto, they won't allow that either..."

"Your Hokage, baa-chan! Do something about it! You are letting the council rule you! If you say something they have to listen!"

"Naruto," Tsunade growled at the naïve boy standing before her desk. "Being Hokage does not mean all that you think it does. In some ways the position has no power at all, only there to voice the council's decisions. I will not fight them on something that I do not truly believe is the right course of action."

"So you think that we should just leave it as is. Go on with life letting Sakura-chan believe that the bastard is dead. She's probably crushed!"

"I didn't say that. There other ways to go about it though. If I were to assign you a 3 year ANBU training mission, in which you were collecting information on the where abouts of Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. In which you were to make sure neither were participating in treasonous activities, it would never go through the council. However at the end of the three years you would have to come back. With or with out the targets."

"Thank you baa-chan! I'll go get Kaka-sensei. He'll want to come." Naruto started heading for the window. "Uhhhhh... where does he live?"

"It doesn't matter brat. Hatake was assigned to a similar mission. Only focused on Sakura."

"Oh... when do I head out?" Naruto stared into Tsunade's worn gold eyes.

"As soon as possible. If the council finds out you were back, they would not let you out of the village for your own saftey. So I wouldn't unpack. Just take your stuff and move quickly. The great thing about back to back missions is you never have to unpack."

She wasn't even done speaking before the blond blur was jumping from roof top to roof top. Kami, she hoped the brat would be ok. She wished him all the luck she never had in her life and more. She thought on her apprentice with a pang in her stomach. Her mind went in to self-depreciation mode.

If she had just been a good sensei and noticed her student's exaustion this never would have happened. Then again, she thought dryly, things happen for a reason. Maybe this was just what team seven needed to become one again. Or it could just be another huge failure with loss and heartbreak, she thought cynically taking a sip of the crisp sake that Shizune had failed to take from her. That was her life and fortune she was basing her thoughts off of, and deep with in her heart she believed that Naruto was going to suceed in life. In all the ways that she had had everything and lost it, he had had nothing and from that state of nothingness he was gaining unimaginable things. He was the one who made her believe that if you want something bad enough, and work for it, you can have it. So she knew that in three years time Naruto would be walking through the gates with Sakura and Sasuke on either side.

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**Just so everyone knows this is going to be a Naruto Sasuke Sakura. As in all three. As in sex scenes with all three participating. if this offends you, then you don't have to read it. escape while you still can!... further more there will be yaoi. just straight yaoi. if this offends you, let me reiterate; you are free to leave.**

**Flames are fine. Most of the time. I prefer if you are going to spend the effort to tell me how much my story sucks to at least explain what brought you to that conclusion. Freedom of speech though, if you would like to tell me what a pathetic shit eating loser i am for believing in a certain pairing, (it has happened in the past) well i guess at the minimum you took time to read my story. So thank you,**

**xoxo LSPAO**


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